Steven Orlowski's Blog: Steve O's "So What?" Blog - Posts Tagged "amazon-com"

The headline of my post today is in quotations because it is the exact headline from a New York Times article published yesterday which bemoans the fact that Amazon.com is "cutting back its deals for scholarly and small-press books".

I may be misreading this, but it seems the authors and publishers feel slighted by Amazon for not discounting the books enough. Maybe the publishers need to reconsider their pricing strategy, for isn't Amazon.com discounting the price set by the publisher?

And let's be clear, Amazon.com owes no one - publisher, author or reader - anything. As a matter of fact we the consumers, writers and publishers of books, have benefited from Amazon.com's willingness to lose money on many of the books it sold in order for it to grow its business and eliminate the competition.

And while I too miss having a local bookstore to visit and buy books I have also wholeheartedly embraced the Amazon.com experience.

It's been years since I bought a new release in a book store. I still go to the one remaining chain bookstore nearby, look at the full-priced book to see if I think I'll like it, then order it on my Amazon.com app.

But everybody should have expected this change in business strategy. We knew the company would eventually want or need to make money on all of the books it sold, including "scholarly" and "small press" titles with presumably limited quantities of buyers.

So who knows, maybe this will spark the inventiveness of the next Jeff Bezos who will figure out a way to make money while meeting the discounting demands of publishers, authors and readers.

But in the meantime this is another reason to embrace the burgeoning indie author movement, which of course means more eBooks sold by, uh, Amazon.com.

At least on Kindle and other e-publishing platforms the authors can price the book as low as they want to, even free, until of course Amazon.com decides to change that policy...which will of course drive another wave of change and innovation.

Publishers and authors (and readers) cannot expect Amazon.com or any other company to lose money on any aspect of its business forever. Like it or not, all businesses are created for one reason and one reason only - profit.

Businesses die without profits. And that goes for every business out there, even those that claim benevolent motivations. No profit = no business. And no business ever gets to the point where it isn't striving for more profit.

I do think however that Amazon will be forced to reconsider some of the new, higher pricing. I've noticed that the pre-release books of some of the authors I regularly buy are much higher today than in the past...and I have stopped ordering those books.

I am a patient man. I'll wait until the price comes down - or for the paperback to be released next year - or until I can borrow the book at my library - for free on my Kindle.

There is a balance that needs to be struck - will be struck - but it will take time. Prices have been wonderfully low for almost two decades at Amazon.com - and the giant has successfully slayed all of its would be killers.

I think we'll have to accept the recent pricing changes temporarily and keep on the lookout for the next bigger, better thing.

My goodreads pal Ellis Shuman sent me a message with a link to his blog and a post with the same name as the title of this one. You can find it here EllisShuman.Blogspot.com if you like.

I think the answer to the question is yes.

Ellis first asks his blog readers to comment on the influx of "friend" requests in his email from strangers on goodreads who apparently find him unbearably appealing as a potential acquaintance. It's how he and I became friends.

His number of friends has grown since the publication of the blog post: from 760 then to 815 today. But then he asks "Please tell me, where are all these friend requests coming from?"

Come on Ellis. All of our friends are listed right there on our individual goodreads pages. You know it, I know it, anybody who is an author on goodreads knows it.

And then he states he doesn't know what an "event" on GoodReads is, or whether or not you can post the same book reviews on GR as Amazon, since Amazon now owns it...why wouldn't Amazon let us? The more the merrier.

I think Ellis has a much better handle on how to use goodreads and self-promotion in general. It seems to me he's sold more books than I have as a result of goodreads based upon his self-reported statistics. And I have three-times as many friends. Shame on me.

The thing is I didn't have a clue what to do with GoodReads in the beginning. I suspect that's a common thing. My account sat latent for months while I forgot about it and my friend total of three stayed static for months (those three being my brother, a former neighbor, and I think my brother's dog...).

But here's the bottom line as far as I see it. Sure, there are some people here that are just readers genuinely interested in finding new authors and interesting books. But I think they might be in the minority. I am quite interested in learning the percentage of authors in the total population versus readers. I would be surprised if authors did not outnumber readers handily.

Whether it was intended to be so, goodreads is a portal for authors to promote their work. And with Amazon.com buying its value proposition as a means of promoting and selling books likely has risen.

Me, I've sold a few books as a result of making friends at goodreads. I've also read more than a few books from new authors I've discovered and/or who successfully promoted themselves to my awareness here as well.

Some were good, some were horrible. But that's what you get in the new wild, wild west of indie publishing.

In the meantime I'll continue to make friends at goodreads (I have more here than I do in real life and on Facebook).

I hope a few more people buy my book. Maybe a couple will be the catalyst for the proverbial "snowball effect" and I can finally leave my necessary career behind and live the life of a full-time novelist.

Did I mention my book is available at Amazon.com for Kindle e-readers?

It's really good. I'm not just saying that because I wrote it.

And it's only $2.99, less than a Grande Cafe Mocha at Starbucks. If you need to you can download a big chunk of it for free - you know, try it before you buy it.

Please. Anyone. Hello. Is there anybody out there...

There's a whole lot of blogging going on in the "indie publishing" camp, most of it aimed at the monopoly in book publishing commonly referred to in the US as the Big Five...

For the record, I am a self-published author, indie if you like, because I couldn't get an agent or a publisher for my novel. And like most, I presume, I figured what the hell, there are a handful of writers making boatloads of money self-publishing, in many cases only eBooks and only at Amazon.com for Kindle, I might as well give it a go.

And I have sold far more books to date than I would have had I continued to pursue representation and a traditional book publishing deal - or have I?

And therein lies the quandary. Among the handful of authors making a lot of money self-publishing are a handful of authors who equally good or even better at marketing than they are at writing. I know because I've read their books.

And one way to succeed is to get everybody on your side, like they belong in an exclusive club. Make them believe that you and they are part of a team. "My success is your success"...

Is it really? Not quite, but I do not begrudge them their success. And I do thing some of the most successful indie authors who also happen to have volunteered to lead the charge believe they are doing so not just in self-interest but for the betterment of the publishing industry as a whole.

And this is normal. Many other industries have gone through similar tumult. But my advice for authors is to not get too far invested in the idea that in order to succeed today you need to self-publish, and to hell with the Big Five. The publishing landscape is changing as if it were perched on the San Andreas fault on a particularly volatile day.

History shows us that the pendulum of change often swings too far and then has to correct. In other words, there may end up being a lot of authors who naively bet their house on indie publishing that end up getting hurt.

The end result of this quantum shift in the publishing biz will be somewhere in the middle ground between the author/agent/publisher relationship of the past century or so and the free-for-all indie publishing bonanza of today.

I read an article recently about the cookbook publishing business. In that corner of the publishing market there was concern that the internet would have a big negative effect on cookbook sales because recipes by the gazillion are available for free online.

What they found, however, was while recipes were readily available for free online it was difficult to determine which ones were good and which one sucked. The recipes were not curated, and web-chefs found the effort needed to determine good versus bad recipes was significant enough that the internet has had practically no effect on cookbook sales.

I think world of fiction publishing has felt the impact but I think it possible that eventually the lack of "curation" will swing the pendulum back the other way.

So far, the indie publishing successes are such that they are manifesting great change in author relationships with agents (some don't have one) and publishers (print only contracts where the author retains all digital rights).

When I was a younger man I wanted to be a professional musician. Some would say I wanted to be a rock star, and I guess that's true, but I took my craft very seriously. I practiced a lot and worked hard and felt that I was a better guitar player than many of the players in the bands whose songs my bands covered.

Back then, before the internet, in order to get signed you had to play a lot of shows. Bands would also record demo's at their own expense and send them out to agents and record companies and radio stations in the hope that someone, somewhere would recognize your talent and sign you to a record deal.

These days if you want to be a rock star your best option is probably to post a video on YouTube and wait for an email offering you a deal. How many bands today are signed before they ever play a single live gig together?

Publishing today is in some respects like trying to become a rock star was in the Eighties.

You write a book, publish it at Amazon.com (at your own expense) and hope someone reads it and likes it enough to boast about it online and gets the mega-sales snowball rolling.

But in other ways it's also a lot like become a rock star is today. There's no need to write three of four books before you get published. There's no need to get rejected by some butt-hole agent or publisher. "F' the man" say the front-runners of the indie publishing revolution. Write it, publish it and write another, ad infinitum...

Here's why indie authors need to be cautious about flipping the bird at mainstream publishers and their agents - many of the indie authors are not that good.

Now, I am not saying that I am great (although I might be), but I've got a reasonable command of grammar, punctuation and the storytelling process - it's all about the fundamentals baby...

And I thank the god of publishing every day for the ability to download samples before buying a book. But I gotta tell you I am shocked sometimes at how poorly written some of the books are that are published by what appear to be successful indie authors.

And that is the force that will drive the pendulum.

Right now there are, I don't know, trillions of eBooks available on Amazon.com.

Does anybody really think most of them are good? Good is subjective, but I've bailed out on many books when the author demonstrated a complete lack of understanding as to the mandatory components of a SENTENCE (or misspell their own protagonists name on page 2)!!!!!

And then there are the ones where the story is just bad. I do not, for the record, think that these writers should not publish, I think they need to be a little more self-critical. And maybe I do too.

But similarly to online recipes, the indie publishing universe may become too flooded with books, many bad and not enough good, and readers might eventually find difficult and frustrating to determine what to read and what to avoid.

I don't know what this middle ground between the indies and the Big Five will ultimately look like, but do not be surprised when it occurs.

If you are serious about a writing career then I hope you continue to work at your craft. If you are not working at your craft it doesn't matter whether you are indie or trying to get a deal with a publisher, your career is not liely to thrive.

There have been more than a few flashes in the pan since the indie revolution started a few years ago; authors who succeeded despite their shortcomings and temporarily gave indie publishing a bad name.

Some are still here, some have disappeared. I'm happy to say a few of the front-runners today deserve their success, but not all.

Marketing skills will make a handful of writers financially successful in the short run. Good writing will keep even fewer around in the long run.

I certainly haven't broken out as an indie publishing success yet. Maybe it's my first book's topic (alien abduction). Maybe it's my marketing (I haven't done much, hoping my writing would get me there). Maybe it's my writing skills (or lack thereof).

If it is my writing, I'm not worried. I work at it everyday and I know I'm getting better. I just hope that my fellow indie authors are focusing as much effort on their writing skills as they are their social media and marketing skills.

Or maybe I should hope they don't...

11 months after I self-published my debut novel in various (although now exclusively Kindle) e-formats, "Pilgrimage" is now available in paperback.

I'm excited. It is very cool having my book in physical form. Seeing Pilgrimage on my Kindle and in the Kindle store at Amazon.com is one thing, but feeling it's weight, having a front and back cover, turning the pages - it all adds another level to the feeling of accomplishment.

Plus I added some graphics to the front and back of the book. The original cover of Pilgrimage is now the first page of the paperback. I added two images to the back as teasers to upcoming books I plan on releasing in the late spring and in the fall of this year.

It's been inspiring too, that as I announced the publication of the paperback, I also started promoting the next book. I just put a couple of images on my Facebook pages. I was thrilled to hear from readers of Pilgrimage who are excited for the next book to be published. Repeat readers, huh? Do I have fans?

In conclusion, I will paraphrase the legendary and misquoted line from Sally Field at the 1985 Oscars "You like me, you really like me!" this way - "Someone likes me, someone really likes me!" And it feels good.

Stephen King is one of my favorite authors. He has also written what may be my favorite book in any genre, On Writing.

It's a great look into the mind of a great writer. And it is more autobiography than it is reference material for wannabe writers.

Writing is a creative endeavor. And Mr. King leaves much of the technical writing considerations to the vast amount of other books on writing. He provides a more meaningful insight into the life of one of the greats of American letters.

So I hacked his book's title for this blog post. That's because I have recently come to recognize the need for authors to have editors.

My best friend was reading my novel Pilgrimage recently. When we got together last weekend he glibly pointed out several errors in the book. I don't mean to suggest he was happy there were errors; just that he was happy he found them.

The errors were nothing terrible, just basic oversights like misspelled words and misplaced punctuation. But that meant I had to go back through the manuscript once again. So as I work on completing my next book I am back to reediting Pilgrimage.

It's a bummer, but it needs to be done. I don't want readers to avoid future books of mine because of sloppy editing in the version of Pilgrimage they read (earlier versions had more errors. Unfortunately, as far as I can determine, Amazon does not automatically update the books on your Kindle with the most recent, revised edition. I hear that is coming, however).

Which brings me to professional editing. I think authors, being the creative minds that I presume we all are, tend to get lost in the story even when editing. It is too hard for us to look at the manuscript objectively, and therefore are prone to missing things that need correction.

But it is expensive to hire an editor. And I'm sure it is a challenge to qualify one unless the editor has been referred to you.

So for now I'll be reediting Pilgrimage myself. But it must be nice to have an editor like Stephen King does. To know that someone will be checking the manuscript for you before publication eliminates much of the worry and presumably allows the writer to focus exclusively on the story.

Someday. Someday.